Now You Have To Choose
by DefyTheRules
Summary: Clovniss one shot or story that I wrote awhile ago and just recently found. Set when Clove died in the book.
1. Chapter 1

**Clove POV**

I tackle her to the ground before Cato or anyone else could possibly see her.

"What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay away!" I whisper, kind of loudly.

"Peeta needs medicine. He'll die without it. It has to be in there." she replies, gesturing towards the cornucopia.

"Why do you care so much about him? What does he have that I don't?" I start to raise my voice, unable to control my anger. "I didn't want it to end like this. Yeah, we killed that little girl, but I could change, hell, I would have. But you chose him. Now you'll join your little friend, and Loverboy won't be too far behind."

Her eyes go wide, and before she can answer me, I feel someone wrench me off of her. I'm dangling in the air now, staring the big District 11 boy in the eyes.

"You kill her? The little girl? Like you were gonna do to her?" he questions, accentuating each question with a shake.

"No-no. I... Cato! CATO!" I cry, seeing the huge rock he has in the hand that isn't suspending me in the air.

"WAIT!" Katnis yells from her spot on the ground. "It wasn't her! Please don't kill her! I need her."

The last part hangs in the air, as the boy contemplates what Katniss just said.

Finally, he speaks. "You help her? Rue? You try to keep her safe, Girl on Fire?"

"Y-Yeah. We were allies. It was my fault she died, I couldn't get back fast enough. But I did kill the District 1 boy that speared her."

The District 11 boy looks to his right, and suddenly I'm flying through the air in the opposite direction. I land, and Katniss is at my side almost instantly.

"Get up. We have to go! Now!"

I know that I won't be able to move fast on my own. I'm dizzy from all the shaking, and I'm pretty sure I broke something when I landed. Katniss must be able to sense this, because she helps me up and basically carries me into the forest, away from the District 11 boy.

As we start to get deeper in, I realize what, actually who it was.

"It was Cato! He came for me! I have to go back!"

She doesn't verbally respond to me, but her body tenses enough for me to know that she must have seen him.

"I have to go back for him. He'll be killed!"

I attempt to remove myself from her grip, but my whole body is aching. And she has a surprisingly strong grip on me, even if I can only feel it when I struggle against her.

"He'll be dead soon Clove. He wouldn't want you to see him like that. He'd want you to remember him..."

"What did you see? You have to let me go! He's my partner! He's only there for me!"

I get free of her, and. I start back towards the cornucopia, albeit at a slower pace. I just have to work through the pain. If I can jut get there...

The cannon goes off twice. I fall to my knees. He died trying to save me. He died because of me. Tears form, but I refuse to cry. I'm still a career. The last one.

Katniss come up behind me, an pulls me to my feet, even as the rest of my body protests.

"Why did you Dave me? It should have been my cannon that went off. It would have been better for everyone if it was me! He has people that will miss him! He was the only one that would miss me! If he'd have lived, you'd be with Loverboy. Where everyone expects you to be."

"Clove, I don't want to be 'with' Peeta okay? I just don't want him to die because I was unable to get him medicine. He helped me once, a long time ago. In just repaying him. I have the medicine, and I'm going to give it to him. You should come with me."

The last part is a plea to stay with her, to not abandon her now. But she already knows what my answer will be.

"Don't make me the bad guy Katniss. You know I can't, no, I won't go with you to him. We are the last three left. There was only three district bags. Mine, yours, and 11's. Cato and 11 are dead. That means its you, me, and Loverboy. It's time for you to choose, and I don't expect it to be me."

So I did this on the notepad of my phone, I've done it before like this, and I think the format turned out okay. Tell me what you think please!


	2. Chapter 2

**Clove POV**

"I guess this is where we part ways then." Her voice breaks our silence.

I'm already turned away from her, and for that I'm grateful. Tears form behind my eyes, but I refuse to give the Capitol the satisfaction.

"Goodbye Katniss. You made your choice." I walk off, but not before I hear her muffled "See you soon."

I don't know if that was meant as a warning, or meant to scare me, but I feel no fear. Not now. I have no real reason to fight now. Honor for my district be damned. The people there never cared for me, and even if I do win, and by extension live, it won't be worth it. I've seen what becomes of the victors, they are all still stuck in the arena in one way or another, and I don't want to go through that alone.

I hear rapid footsteps, and growling behind me. It's the mutts, and they're gaining on me fast. The only place for me to go is up a tree. I'm in the middle of the forest, and there's no way I can outrun them. I've never been much of a climber, but I have enough motivation that I get up the tree pretty fast.

I don't want to win alone, but I don't want to be ripped apart piece by piece either. I want death to be swift, and mostly painless, if that's possible. Maybe I can convince Katniss to do it for me. Death by the mutts is always slow and painful. The tribute is always covered in blood, ripped to shreds, but then left to slowly die from blood loss, or something else. I refuse to allow myself to go out like that. I still have a little bit of fight left in me.

Some of the mutts are jumping at the tree, while other are throwing their full weight against the trunk, shaking it, trying to dislodge me from my branch. I tighten my grip on the branch. Just when I think I'm about to fall, a cannon goes off in the distance.

My thoughts are racing. Who died? Was it Katniss? It couldn't have been. She has to live. I have to make sure she wins.

The mutts take off in the direction of the shot, leaving me alone in the thoughts are consumed with her. Katniss can't be dead.

**Katniss POV**

I didn't want to leave Clove, but I had something I had to do. Peeta needs me. He saved me once, and I can't just let the infection kill him. The venom in her voice is evident when she tells me goodbye, but I can't blame her. If I thought she was abandoning me, I have a feeling my voice would have held the same tone.

I don't respond with a goodbye, instead I say "See you soon". She stops walking for a moment, but she refuses to look at me. It hurts, but I hope soon she will understand.

I hike up to the cave I left Peeta in. He's still sleeping, and I feel slightly grateful for it. I'm not sure if I would be able to do this if he was awake. I set the pack with his medicine down, and sit down and slip my pack from my back. I rummage through, till I find my food. I leave him half, then walk back to the entrance.

"Goodbye Peeta. I can't stay with you anymore." I murmur, and a rustling comes from the cave.

He's waking up now. It seems like I got out just in time. He's obviously seen the supplies and put two and two together. Footsteps are coming towards me, and I quickly duck into a bush.

Peeta comes out of the cave, covered in sweat, and limping heavily. His leg is bleeding heavily, he must have reopened it in his sleep. He walks right past me and into the forest, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

It's short lived, because I hear his scream not thirty seconds later. I can't help but run towards him. I wanted to leave him, but the sounds he's making allude to massive amounts of pain being inflicted. I don't want him to suffer.

By the time I get there, whatever attacked him has disappeared, leaving his broken body in its wake. He's making a disgusting gurgling noise, there's blood everywhere.

"Peeta, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for…"

"Mom? Is that you? Mom, I'm so sorry Mom. I tried, but I wasn't good enough." He whispers

I've never met his mother. She died when he was born. The fever and the pain have gotten to his mind. But this is the last thing I can do for him, so I play along.

"No Peeta, you did so good. I'm so proud of you. You can move on now. I'll be there waiting for you okay? I promise. Just let go Peeta."

He nods towards me, and with a smile, his innocent smile that could light up a room, Peeta died. His cannon goes off, and I move away from him to cover him in the flowers around us, just as I'd done with Rue.

Barking and the ground shaking alert me to the mutts' presence. I scramble up the closest tree, and watch them run past both me and Peeta, but before I can come down and finish my task, the Capitol has his body moved. I drop the flowers in my hand, and look up at his one last time.

"I'm so sorry." I murmur, than turn towards the camera I know is in the tree to my right. I make the signal of my district, then head to the last place I saw Clove. I planned to return to her all along, but I didn't want to come back like this. Never like this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Katniss POV**

Clove wasn't hard to find. She's up in a tree, high enough to where the mutts won't actually be able to reach her, but I could still easily see her from the ground. She seems to be attempting to get down, but the branches are giving her trouble.

"What are you doing?" I yell, a slight smile on my face as I watch her struggle above me. Even after everything that has happened, the sight of anyone, especially a career, especially Clove, stuck in a tree is funny.

She's startled by my voice, and lets go of the branch she had been clinging to, falling onto a sturdier one a few feet below, and something cracks as she lands on her back, then falls the rest of the way down the tree.

I run to her, and help sit her up. She's breathing heavily, but still grins when she seems me.

"I thought you were dead. I was coming to see if you were alive, and to kill Loverboy if he was alive. I'm a… Not much of a climber. The mutts chased me up, but getting down was kinda hard. Well I guess it wasn't as hard as it could be."

"Are you hurt? I heard something crack when you hit that limb."

She shakes her head, and I pull her up so she's standing. She slowly starts leading me out of the woods, and towards the cornucopia. There are no words. She just takes my hand in hers and starts walking, and soon I match her pace, even though it is not as fast as I would have liked. My eyes scan our surroundings for any danger, specifically the mutts. I don't want to have a run in with them, not with Clove in the state she's in. I don't think she would be able to run, and I know we couldn't fight them all off.

Yet we make it to the cornucopia without any sort of disruption from our peaceful walk, and I can't help but be suspicious. Night has fallen by the time we arrive, and Clove starts to slowly make her way up the side of the cornucopia. I haul myself up after her, and then she finally speaks.

"It'll all be over tomorrow you know? They wanted to see what we'd do. They left us to our own devices, and hoped we would just kill each other. I highly doubt they will kill us in the night. They want it to be brutal. They want the winner to wish they were dead. Death might end up being the easy way out. The dead one won't have to go through the pain of recovering from whatever awaits us. But if I can spend the rest of the night with you, without any of those things, I'll be ready to face whatever the morning will bring."

I grasp her in my arms and kiss her, and I feel her grip onto me, and I know she needs this just as much as I do, and that everything she just told me was true, even the part about how much pain is to come. They won't let us both live.

"Nightlock." I murmur as I reluctantly pull away from her. "We could both take it. They wouod surely stop us. They need to have someone win." I whisper

"That might work, but then what would they do to us afterwords? What would happen to your family? They would do the same thing to your family that they did to Johanna Mason's. Her whole family was killed a little after she got back. She disobeyed someone high up, I bet Snow, and then she paid for it. I won't let that happen to your family. I'll think of something else. You just sleep now. I'll take first watch. I'll wake you when I'm tired."

She unwraps herself from me, and I frown at the loss of contact. She grabs my sleeping bag, and allows me to get in it before she zips me in, then sitting beside me, running her fingers through my hair.

"Goodnight Katniss. I'll see you in the morning. I'll have everything all figured out by then, I promise." She kisses my forehead, and almost immediately I feel myself drifting off, knowing I'm safe with her there.

**Clove POV**

I wish there was another way for this to end. I really do, but there are people who depend on her, and the loss of them would ruin her. I know what I have to do, but I still don't know if I can do it. I'm scared, and as selfish as it is, I had let myself think of a life with her, one where we both somehow made it out, and fought the Capitol, and won.

I allowed myself to think about things like that on those few nights when I was away from her, the nights now I wish I had just gone with her, because our time together has been too short. But I kept her safe, which was why I stayed away.

I plan to spend the rest of my night watching over her, peaceful in sleep, unaware of my plan. I hope she doesn't hate me.

**Katniss POV**

I awake to the sound of a canon, and I know. The sun is bright, and seems to be hitting Clove in a dramatic fashion from where I lay. She sits in the same position as last night, right beside me, and she's looking at me, a smile on her face. One of her knives is sticking out from her chest.

I cry, unable to keep up that strong façade I had tried to maintain, as I hear my name being announced as the winner of the 74th Hunger Games.


End file.
